Sunday, 15 April 2018

British High Commissioner Matthew Kidd: Chance for solution will be lost soon

You need to “define what a settlement could look like
in terms that focus on the future that it would bring, rather than the past
that it would be designed to correct.”

“There is still just a chance… If it doesn’t happen
very soon - within months - then really the opportunity will have been lost.”

“In Switzerland during last year, new ground was being
broken. And it was being broken in a constructive way, which brought answers to
the last outstanding questions, particularly on security and guarantees within
reach.”

The Secretary General’s framework shows us that what is
left is a specific set of big things, which need to be addressed
interdependently. And that needs a different kind of process.”

“It would be
very difficult for Cyprus to exploit its hydrocarbons if there is no solution.”

“There is a really important difference politically,
economically, in terms of mentality between a status quo we put up with because
we think it’s a temporary stepping stone on the way to a better outcome, and
the status quo, which is all we have got left once that prospect of a better
alternative no longer exists.”

ESRA AYGIN

Now
that you are leaving the island, maybe you can tell me what really happened in
Crans Montana.

Kidd: This question points us backwards
but what we need is to look forward. And that is part of a bigger challenge to
define what a settlement could look like in terms that focus on the future that
it would bring, rather than the past that it would be designed to correct. It
needs to correct that past of course, it needs to reflect that experiences. But
it needs to look forward as well. And the more we focus on the advantages that
it can bring, and the kind of Cyprus that it can make possible, the easier it
is to find a way of designing it to support those positive, forward looking
goals.

“In Switzerland during last year, new ground was being
broken. And it was being broken in a constructive way, which brought answers to
the last outstanding questions, particularly on security and guarantees within
reach.”

Do
you agree with the UN Secretary General that a historic chance was missed in
Crans Montana?

Kidd: It would have been a historic
achievement, no question. It was an opportunity to achieve that historic
achievement, no question. It was missed. But if you start calling it a historic
opportunity, you do tend to suggest that it is all over. And I don’t think we
are quite there. I think that in those three sessions in Switzerland during
last year, new ground was being broken. And it was being broken in a
constructive way, which brought answers to the last outstanding questions,
particularly on security and guarantees within reach. And that material, that
thinking, those discussions are still available, could still be utilized. So
that’s why I don’t think it’s all over. But that material and the kind of
political climate in which those discussions happened is not going to wait
forever for people to come back and use it. Even in the last 9 months as we have
seen, people have started to walk back a bit from some of the thinking that
they were ready to start doing then. Some of the more general climate has
gotten worse. New problems have come up to make progress harder.

“There is still just a chance… If it doesn’t happen
very soon - within months - then really the opportunity will have been lost.”

Is
there still a chance?

Kidd: There is still just a chance. But
the longer you leave it, the more things coming from outside, the more
statements people make will make it harder and harder to rebuild the confidence.
And without the confidence, you don’t rebuild the readiness to compromise, and
you get to the end of the road. So, I think personally, that if it doesn’t
happen very soon - within months - then really the opportunity will have been
lost. This is the moment, which there either can be a settlement or the thing
that we have all been working for, for all these years is not going to be able
to happen.

The
UNSG said the period after Crans Montana should be a period of reflection and
consideration for all sides. Did the UK go through a reflection period?

Kidd: Definitely yes, absolutely.

Do
you have a clearer idea of how to avoid now the failure that took place in
Crans Montana?

Kidd: There were things that we were
all trying to do, which it turned out we couldn’t do them in the way that we
were trying to do them. It wasn’t a mistake necessarily, but it turned out not
to be a successful route. There are ways in which the whole process worked,
which I think didn’t work as well as we hoped they would. If some of the
things, which happened on the last couple of days,

had
happened earlier, if we had found ways of getting them onto the table earlier,
we could have made more use overall of the time we had. I will give an example
and leave it at that. The length of time that we spent in Crans Montana, the
10-12 days could have been really good. But we didn’t quite design it in ways,
which meant that we used every day of that 10-12 day period as well as it could
have been used. It’s worth thinking about whether another time it could be
designed a little bit differently and maybe to think of a shorter block and
then maybe another shorter block later rather than 12 days at once.

“The framework the Secretary General prepared was a
very skillful, expert, balanced piece of work both in substance and in method…
If we can get a process underway, it will be very good to use that.”

Now
that everything has come to the table and we have the very skillfully prepared
framework of the UN Secretary General, would it be an easier and smoother
process if the sides can get back to the table?

Kidd: I think yes. I agree with you the
framework the Secretary General prepared was a very skillful, expert, balanced
piece of work both in substance and in method. It is encouraging to hear
players of all sides valuing it and wanting to find ways of using it. So yes,
if we can get a process underway, it will be very good to use that. It has
never been available before. It found a way to bring together the elements that
had in practice, up to that point, been treated separately even though we said
they were to be interdependent.

I am
assuming Britain is in touch with all the parties. Do you see there is
commitment from all parties to this framework?

Kidd: I think at this stage they don’t
all think of it in the same way. I think there is general agreement that it is
valuable, that it is a model, which is worth trying to use. But I don’t think
there is agreement on exactly is best to do with it.

“The best thing to do is to test Turkey.”

We
heard from various sources that Turkey was willing to give up guarantees in
Crans Montana even though this was not put in writing. Considering the
developments since, is Turkey at the same position?

Kidd: I don’t know, but I think the
best thing to do is to test Turkey and find out. I think it’s a real pity to
reach the conclusion ‘They will never agree to it now’ without testing it. And
this is a negotiating habit, which both sides have developed over the years,
because they’ve been disappointed too often. They tend to think they know what
the other will accept and they tend to be too quick to say ‘They will never do
that.’ Without testing it, without trying, without offering something that will
help make it happen. So I think in this case, we need to find the opportunity
if we can, to test how ready Turkey now is.

“Division undermines security and political impact and
makes it harder for Cyprus to play any effective part in protecting its own
security in these difficult circumstances.”

Do
the conflicts in the region increase the urgency of a solution?

Kidd: The developments in the region
are an extra factor, an extra reason to think that a reunified Cyprus operating
in a constructive, collaborative way -that it hasn’t done for all those years-
would be a safer place in a difficult region than the current situation, where
there is that extra division between the two parts of the island. A division,
which undermines security and political impact, and makes it harder for Cyprus
to play any effective part in protecting its own security in these difficult
circumstances.

“It would be very difficult for Cyprus to exploit its
hydrocarbons without a solution.”

Are
we heading towards a bigger crisis in the Eastern Mediterranean with regards
the hydrocarbon exploration activities?

Kidd: I hope the answer to your
question is ‘no.’ We are a signatory of the Law of the Sea Convention, so we
recognize Cyprus’ claim under the Law of the Sea Convention to its EEZ and its
right to exploit that. But we also see that potentially the fact that there are
hydrocarbons in these waters is a new factor to underline the value of a
settlement. Our hope is that as development of the hydrocarbons goes forward,
this is done in light of efforts to reach a settlement. Because then, everyone
gets the benefits from it in the easiest way.

If there is no solution would it be possible for Cyprus to exploit its
hydrocarbons?

Kidd: I think it
gets very difficult. The good scenario is that there is a settlement and it’s
win-win for everybody. The bad scenario is that there isn’t a settlement and it
gets very hard for anybody to get any benefit from it.

What
is our biggest challenge now to get a negotiation process started?

Kidd: There is a lot of skepticism in
public opinion. Each time there is a moment of hope, where it looks as thought
something is finally going to happen and then it doesn’t, that skepticism risks
getting deeper. And that, of course, is reflected in the leaders’ sense of where
their own public opinion is, and how much room for maneuever they have, and how
much political will they are ready to show. Plus, that sense of not a clear
enough vision of what a future could look like in a settlement.

But both
sides know quite well what a solution will look like.

Kidd: I agree with you. It’s pretty
clear what the outcome of the deal looks like. What is not so clear is what it
opens the way to. How a reunified Cyprus would work, what opportunities would
become possible in it. That’s what is missing. There has been little effort to
educate people, to explain to them, to offer to them what openings a settlement
would provide, how life could look better in a solution.

In case of non-solution “the dilemmas for the Turkish
Cypriots would become more acute. For Greek Cypriots, the assets that they
have, the opportunities that could await them would be harder over time to
grasp.”

What
awaits Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots in case of non-solution?

Kidd: What I am quite confident about is
that the prospects for both sides would be worse. The dilemmas for the Turkish
Cypriots would become more acute. For Greek Cypriots, the assets that they
have, the opportunities that could await them would be harder over time to
grasp. Some of the handicaps that they have faced and tolerated facing because
there would be a deal, would become more and more binding. There is a really
important difference politically, economically, in terms of mentality, between
a status quo we put up with because we think it’s a temporary stepping stone on
the way to a better outcome, and the status quo, which is all we have got left
once that prospect of a better alternative no longer exists.

The
leaders are having a dinner on 16 April. What would be the best outcome at the
dinner?

Kidd: I think it’s right to start with
quite modest expectations. They meet after 9 months and they probably both
saved up quite a lot of frustrations and grumbles about each other to get off
their chest. So that has to happen. I hope that they will both, in the course
of that conversation, hear each other saying that they still want to bring this
negotiation to a conclusion and that their communities need that. If they can
hear each other saying that, then this shows that they want to try now to
design a way of doing that, which will need to be a bit different from what we
had before.

“The Secretary General’s framework shows us that what is
left is a specific set of big things, which need to be addressed
interdependently. And that needs a different kind of process.”

How
should the process be different?

Kidd: The stage that we reached last
summer, what there is left to do, and the Secretary General’s framework mean
that we are at a different stage of the process. We have been through a long
period of laborious, detailed settlement of most of the internal issues. We got
past that. We know what is left. The Secretary General’s framework shows us that
what is left is a specific set of big things, which need to be addressed
interdependently. And that needs a different kind of process. And the leaders need
to figure out how. I can’t design their negotiating method for them but I think
that it is sensible to think that this is now a stage, which may need different
methodologies.